Leaders from a grass-roots coalition of 35 African American and Latino churches in the Sacramento region grilled elected officials Oct. 29 on amnesty for undocumented workers, affordable housing, job creation and voter turnout.

Some 3,000 people made up a diverse audience gathered at the Sacramento Community Convention Center for the annual assembly of the Sacramento Valley and Solano County Organizing Communities in a kind of political rally with a strong religious flavor.

The organizers describe the assembly as a session of “negotiations” with officials, but most of the coalition’s positions and proposals have been discussed with elected leaders ahead of time.

Among the elected officials questioned on their stands on amnesty, housing, jobs and child care were Sacramento mayoral candidates Heather Fargo and Rob Kerth, Sacramento City Councilman Dave Jones, state Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg and state Sen. Deborah Ortiz.

Members of the Sacramento Valley and Solano County Organizing Communities chant “Amnesty, yes!” during the coalition’s annual assembly Oct. 29. Ernesto Flores/Herald photo

Sacramento Bishop William K. Weigand spoke to the assembly on the Catholic Church’s position on immigrant amnesty, while Bishop E. Lynn Brown of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church spoke on the need for affordable housing for low-income people.

Bishop Weigand noted that earlier this year, the U.S. bishops joined with the AFL-CIO in calling for serious consideration of “a general amnesty for those workers who come to the U.S. fleeing oppression and destitution and who make significant contributions to our society.” He said the state’s Catholic bishops have also recently discussed ways to help achieve a general amnesty.

Members of some 25 Catholic parishes in the region and other churches who belong to the SVOC/SCOC have been working with local labor groups over the past several months to build a strong coalition in support of total amnesty for all undocumented workers in the nation.

More than 3,000 people have participated in 15 community meetings in the past 11 months about a general amnesty, organized jointly the SVOC/SCOC, the Sacramento Labor Council and the Hispanic Apostolate of the Diocese of Sacramento.

SVOC /SCOC leaders have also worked to speed up the residency application process at the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and to create an affordable immigration program for low-income families.

Susan Curda, Sacramento’s officer in charge of the INS, told the assembly her office in recent months has been able to reduce the backlog of residency and citizenship applications from 13,000 to 4,500. She said she hoped by this time next year, there will be no citizenship application that takes more than seven months.

“We are very encouraged by the serious effort that’s been made to reduce the backlog and Curda’s commitment to speeding up the process,” said Uli Schmidt-Culp, an SVOC/SCOC official. He said Curda also committed to a pilot project where INS staff would conduct final interviews for citizenship on site at local churches. Citizenship classes are already being held on site at several churches.

Schmidt-Culp said among those attending the assembly were approximately 85 young people from Sacramento, Yolo and Solano counties who hope to be involved in youth education efforts in their communities during the next year.

Jim Rodgers, executive director of Catholic Charities of Sacramento, announced at the assembly that SVOC/SCOC had been awarded a grant of $50,000 from the U.S. bishops’ Catholic Campaign for Human Development for the organization’s economic development efforts in the region.

With this grant, he said, SVOC/SCOC has received a total of $155,000 since 1994 from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.

“The quality of the work SVOC/SCOC does has generated these grants,” Rodgers said. “They have become a vibrant network of local churches who are developing strong leaders on many social justice issues.”

Copyright © 2000 Diocese of Sacramento - All Rights Reserved

[Catholic Herald - This Issue]